2.1.2 Video在线视频

2.1. War and politics in the fifth century BC

1. Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years, including the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The classical Greece opened and closed both with wars with Persians. It started from the Persian Wars to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. Classical Greece was the golden days of ancient Greece, played a very important role in the development of the Western Civilization. Much of modern Western politics, arts including architecture, sculpture, literature, drama, science and philosophy derives from this period. During the classical period Athens was the largest and most powerful city state, the cultural and political center of the whole Greek world. Most of what we call the ancient Greece today is actually the Classical Athens.

2. Playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, historians Herodotus and Thucydides, philosopher Socrates, physician Hippocrates all lived in 5th century BC Athens. Hippocrates is “the Father of Medicine”.

3. Let’s look at part of the famous Hippocratic Oath: “I swear by Apollo and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing”.

4. Delian League. After the Persian Wars, some Greek city states tried to unite themselves against the danger of another Persian invasion. In 478 BC, Delian League was formed. The name of the league came from the city they met, Delos. Its purpose was to liberate Greek cities in Asia Minor still under Persian control. As the only sea power Athens naturally became the leader. Another power Sparta didn’t join the league because it was struggling with the domestic problems, constant revolts of helots, the state’s serfs. This League ensured the power and prosperity of Athens. Athens took an imperialistic policy. Other members have to pay cash contribution to the league but that is in name only, actually they paid to Athens; half of the spoils should give to Athens. Spoils are valuable things seized by war. Pro-Athens poppet governments were established and Athenian garrisons built in each city. Athens was an Empire now.

5. Pericles. 

The fifth century BC of Athens is called the Golden Age of Athens. Athens became the super power with political hegemony, economic growth and cultural flourishing. One reason of these achievements was Athens had a great leader Pericles.

Pericles’ life time was from 461 to 429 BC, this time Athens was led by Pericles is called The Age of Pericles. He was a great orator, general and a Demagogue. Orator is someone who is skilled at making speeches. Because most of offices were elected by lot annually, we can say Athenian democracy was formally run by amateurs, not professionals. Real political power actually came from generals and popular leaders. They are very good at using speeches to influence people. They were called demagogue. But gradually this word got negative meaning. Today demagogue refers to someone tries to win people's support by appealing to their emotions rather than using reasonable arguments.

6. Most of the surviving structures on the Acropolis including the Parthenon were built by Pericles. The great bronze statue of Athena was the work of the Athenian sculptor Phidias. This huge statue stood there for thousand years until it was transported to Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, and finally destroyed by a rioting crowd in 1203. No one knows what the original one looked like, maybe like this.

7. And this is what left today

8. Pericles’ funeral oration was his most famous speech. It was a speech at the public funeral in honor of all people died in war. The speech was delivered at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War in 431BC.

9. “Our constitution is called democracy because power is in the hands of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law”. This is the origin of the famous phrase “equal justice under law.”

10. The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) was a war fought by the Delian League led by Athens against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. It was also an international war because Persians fought on the side of Sparta. At first Sparta invaded Attic, but they couldn’t conquer Athens even a terrible plague killed 30% of Athenians including Pericles. At the same time Athenian naval fleet raided the coast of the Peloponnese. At first Athens was the winner. In 421 BC the two sides signed the peace agreement. In 415 BC, the new Athenian leader Alcibiades led a massive force to conquer Sicily but the entire force had been lost, 200 ships, 50,000 soldiers. The commander Alcibiades fled to Sparta. Finally in 404 BC by the help of Parisian troops Sparta conquered Athens. Athens surrendered unconditionally.

11. Look at the map, red color the Delian League led by Athens, blue color the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. And this is Sicily.

12. Classical Greece have two great historians. Herodotus (480-420BC) was born in a Greek city Halicarnassus in the Persian Empire. Little is known of his personal life. Roman politician Cicero called Herodotus "The Father of History". His book The History was the founding work of history. It recorded the traditions, politics, geography, and clashes of cultures in Asia Minor, Northern Africa and Greece at the end of the sixth century BC. His history was based on his widely travel and investigation. The most important event in his book is the Persian Wars. Herodotus stood at the Greek side described the war is a conflict of democracy against despotism and slavery. Despotism is a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator not restricted by a constitution or laws. To Herodotus, Persian Empire is despotism, Athens and other Greek states are Democracy, they united against the Parisian invaders.

13. And this is Thucydides 460- 400 BC. He was an Athenian historian and general, 20 years younger than Herodotus. His History of the Peloponnesian War recorded the war between Sparta and Athens. Herodotus recorded history 100 years before him but Thucydides wrote a contemporary history, his military career is part of the war. He was the defeated Athenian commander responsible for the loss of Amphipolis to Sparta in the Battle of Amphipolis in 422 BC, Amphipolis is a northern Greek city controlled by Athens. Thucydides was exiled and then started to write his history. Herodotus believed gods intervened in human affairs but Thucydides focused on human activity. Herodotus is the father of history; Thucydides is the first social scientist or the father of "scientific history" for his objective and impartial attitude, evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect. Thucydides had recorded many valuable political speeches like the Pericles’ funeral oration mentioned before.

14. Let’s look at another example: the negotiation between Athens and Milos. Milos is a volcanic island in the Aegean Sea, just north of the Sea of Crete. Remember "Venus de Milo”? That is the same island. During the Peloponnesian War Milos tried to remain neutral, Athens invaded the island. Let’s listen to how the Athenians told the representatives of Milos: “the standard of justice depends on the quality of power to compel and that in fact the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.” Finally the Athenian took the city and killed all the men and sold all the women and children into slavery. From this event we can see the brutal side of the Athenians; this brutality toward the other people is also the dark side of the whole Western Civilization.

15. Thucydides Trap

You may have heard Thucydides Trap. Thucydides wrote: "What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta." Based on this idea, a Harvard professor Graham Allison coined the phrase "Thucydides Trap" to refer to when a rising power causes fear in an established power，confrontation or war would eventually happen president Xi Jinping said: "There is no such thing as the so-called Thucydides traps in the world.  But should major countries time and again make the mistakes of strategic miscalculation, they might create such traps for themselves." The peaceful rising of China is not a threat to US and the world, the Thucydides Trap should be avoided.

16. Key words: Classical Greece, Age of Pericles, the Peloponnesian War, Herodotus, Thucydides Trap